Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all love the liturgy to the best of our ability.
LOVE FOR LITURGY IS LOVE FOR CHRIST.
LOVE FOR CHRIST IS OUR HATE FOR SATAN.
THEREFORE, LOVE FOR LITURGY IS OUR DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST SATAN
The
liturgy raises hearts to God like no other prayer, Pope says.
By David
Kerr
Vatican
City, Sep 26, 2012 / 10:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict says that the
public prayer of the Church, known as the liturgy, is a wonderful school of
prayer which raises the human heart to God like no other form of worship.
“It is in
the liturgy that we ‘lift up our hearts,’ opening ourselves to the word of God
as we gather with our brethren in a prayer which rises within us, and which is
directed to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit,” the Pope said at his
Sept. 26 general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
“As the
Second Vatican Council teaches, it is by means of the liturgy that Christ our
Redeemer and High Priest continues the work of our redemption in, with, and
through his Church. This is the great marvel of the liturgy: God acts, while we
are caught up in his action,” the Pope said.
He
offered his reflections as part of an ongoing weekly exploration of the role of
prayer in the story of salvation.
Pope
Benedict explained to the estimated 10,000 pilgrims present that the “liturgy”
comes from the Greek meaning “work done by the people and for the people.”
The
people in question are the “new People of God, brought into being by Christ”
through his passion, death and resurrection. This means it is a people “which
does not exist by itself and which is not bound by blood, territory or country,
but is brought into being through the Paschal Mystery,” the Pope noted.
It was
almost a “chance occurrence,” he said, that the first document approved by the
Second Vatican Council was the constitution on the sacred liturgy,
“Sacrosanctum Concilium.”
“Among
the many projects, the text on the sacred liturgy seemed to be the least
controversial, and, for this reason, is seen as an exercise in the methodology
of conciliar work,” he recalled. As a young priest and academic, Pope Benedict
attended the Second Vatican Council as the chief theological advisor or
“peritus” to Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne.
“But
without a doubt,” the Pope stated, “what at first glance seemed a chance
occurrence, proved to be the right choice, starting from the hierarchy of
themes and most important tasks of the Church.”
“Where
God’s gaze is not decisive,” he said, “everything else loses its direction.”
The basic criterion for the liturgy, therefore, “is its orientation to God, so
that we can share in his work.”
The
requirement for a good liturgical celebration, he suggested, is both “prayer
and conversation with God, first listening and then answering.”
In that
sense, the liturgy is the opposite of how we normally communicate, where
internal thoughts usually precede the formulation of external speech.
But in
the liturgy “it is the inverse, the words come first,” Pope Benedict said. “God
gave us the Word and the Sacred Liturgy gives us the words, and we must enter
into their meaning, welcome them within us, be in harmony with them. Thus we
become children of God, similar to God.”
He
explained that this means there should be a “correlation between what we say
with our lips and what we carry in our hearts.” It is this relationship which
is “essential, fundamental, to our dialogue with God in the liturgy.”
When we
experience the liturgy with this attitude, the Pope said, “it is as if our
heart is freed from the force of gravity, which drags it down, and from within
rises upwards, towards truth and love, towards God.”
“Dear
friends,” the Pope said as he drew to a close, “we celebrate and live the liturgy
well only if we remain in an attitude of prayer, united to the Mystery of
Christ and his dialogue as the Son with the Father.”
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